Thinking about Dean Moriarty

Many great ideas for TV shows go unrealised. So it is with werewolf tax attorney, courtesy of the bad folk at cracked.

It brings to mind well spent youthful days playing balderdash. Some fantastic movie plots and word meanings were confabulated, but perhaps none as sweet and graceful as the "1932 drama about a troupe of tap dancing grizzly bears". Ah Tasathanas, I need another dose of your humour.

ps I believe the above werewolf is the father from Teen Wolf (part one)

On the road

A week after arriving in 'complex' Istanbul, I met Hidayet. He was a friend of a friend of a friend, first one Sydney, second Sultanahmet via Hotel Empress Zoe, the last in Unkapani. I met him in a tea house in Tophane, which is where all the good tea houses are. Apple tea tastes like absolute sickly sweet shit, but if you pipe it through a nargileh, it's a light sweet smooth and not at all intoxicating.

My wife had gone to do some shopping, and judging by the length of her list she wouldn't be back for a few days. I figured that a bit of tea and nargileh couldn't hurt my throat too much, and might even help. Hidayet agreed. "Turkish apple tobacco, very good for sore throat. Cigarettes, not so much, but I don't have sore throat." You only realise how succesfully Sydney has marginalised smokers when you see them in full flight elsewhere. People blow smoke in your face here and expect you to say tessekurler.

I ordered us both an Efe, 70cl, and we knocked it back in between puffs. I ordered another round and Hedo told me about his life. He'd had a tough life, or it seemed so to me, but it wasn't any tougher than most other Istanbullu. He started working for his dad at 9, taking customers drinks and clearing up. Sometimes the customers would swear at him when he dropped things, but his dad never came to his defence. He dropped out of school at 15, unlike most of his friends, and he travelled around central Anatolya for a few years, working odd jobs for food and board. Right now he was doing some work as a travel agent, helping in the office at his friend's mannequin shop, and doing a little fishing from the Galata bridge for fun.

He knew a better place we could go, somewhere with a more diverse crowd, the drinks a bit more expensive, but i didn't mind. i hadn't bought any presents for anyone yet, so i was flush.

Fenerbahce beat Besiktas 2-1!

Can you believe it?

Today's Zaman called it a feast of fast flowing soccer, which included arguments between players as depicted pictorially.



It really was quite a game, with incredibly many chances, some taken and some missed. Besiktas hadn't lost at this stadium in seven years, and they can consider themselves hard done by, missing a last minute (figuratively speaking) equaliser due to a questionable refereeing decision. I quote former soccer player and FIFA-ranked referee turned soccer analyst Erman Toroğlu on Lig TV on Saturday night, “If you call that position a foul, then this means the end of the world.” Fenerbahce keep their nose in front on the league ladder, but the season is far from over. In fact it hasn't even started. Yes, it has.

I was strongly considering attending the game, owing to my ongoing presence in the Fenerbahce district, but I became convinced it would be too dangerous for a non-partisan supporter such as myself, and indeed myself. I later found out the game was sold out anyway. I was treated to extended highlights the next day on tv, repeated fairly well ad nauseam. On tv I also found out there was some thuggish, loutish, riotish behavious after the game, confirming my suspicion that a fellow poorly trained in rock-throwing such as myself, indeed myself, would be better off not attending. The Turkish media has a far higher attention span than in Australia, with long interviews and highlights packages. This is probably limited to football.

I have a chance to attend a basketball game, and I wonder if I'll take it.